One of the earliest devices for connecting an electrical cable to a surface conductor of a printed circuit board employed a socket connector adapted for attachment to a pin or header soldered into the printed circuit board. These early devices were both expensive and time-consuming to install.
More recently, connector assemblies have been developed which overcome the problems and disadvantages of the early devices discussed above. For instance, Teagno et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,744,009 describes and illustrates a more recent type of printed circuit board connector assembly which utilizes rigid leg members attached to a stationary housing, each of the leg members registering with a corresponding aperture in a printed circuit board for mounting the connector assembly thereon. Due to the rigidity of the leg members, the housing must be slid along the printed circuit board to properly latch the housing in position. Sliding the housing along the printed circuit board is undesirable, because a contact carried by the housing rubs against a surface conductor on the printed circuit board, thereby causing undue wear of the surface conductor and a resulting rapid deterioration of the electrical juncture between the contact and the surface conductor.
In order to reduce such wear, the connector assemblies disclosed in Narozny U.S. Pat. No. 4,009,921 were developed by the assignee of this application. The connector assemblies of the Narozny patent include two pairs of resilient leg members which are attached to a body portion of the connector assemblies, each of the leg members terminating in a foot adapted for insertion through a corresponding aperture in a printed circuit board. The feet of at least one pair of the legs can be deflected to permit them to pass through their corresponding apertures. The resilient leg members and the deflectable feet permit the connector assemblies to be pivoted or pushed into position. By pivoting or pushing the connector assemblies into position, it is possible to avoid the wear generally resulting from the use of the connector assemblies, like the one disclosed in the Teagno et al. patent, which are mounted on a printed circuit board by sliding them into position. Despite the substantial advantages of the connector assemblies described and illustrated in the Narozny patent, their mounting and removal are complicated by the need to manually engage at least one pair of the leg members or feet to deflect the individual leg members or feet into proper positions with respect to the corresponding apertures in the printed circuit board.
In the past, electrical contacts for printed circuit boards have employed a number of aligned insulation-displacing slots designed to displace the insulation of an insulated conductor. However, when such conductors are made from a bundle of individual strands of conducting material, the outer strands tend to become somewhat realigned and compressed toward the medial longitudinal axes of the slots, thereby disadvantageously reducing the quality of the electrical connection between the contacts and the conductor. A contact having aligned insulation-piercing slots, which are similar to the insulation-displacing slots discussed above, is disclosed in the Narozny patent.